On the heels of the freewheeling discussion emanating from my recent post “McChurch?” comes this succinct critique of “Consumer Christianity” from the ubiquitous and uber reasonable Church of Christ prophet, Edward Fudge.
Talk about jumping on the bandwagon. I swear, sometimes I think that man sits around reading my blog.
I realize that very few of you know Lamar Jackson, but take my word for it: He’s a great guy. Lamar played club and high school soccer with Number One Son, and he is a sophomore pharmacy student at Ole Miss. Like many college kids in town, he had come back to Huntsville to rendezvous with friends at Big Spring Jam. On his way back to Oxford, he apparently fell asleep at the wheel and was injured badly in a single car accident near Tupelo Sunday evening.
Things were touch and go for a while and he was on a respirator, but he is now able to breathe on his own.… Read the rest
I’m just wondering what Fusioneers think about the whole McChurch thing. You know, churches these days using the same glitz and glam that secular businesses use to market themselves as purveyors of goods and services.
Sell-out to our materialistic age, necessary accommodation to the times, or something in between? What say ye?… Read the rest
People cross this world
Over and then back again
Never even one time lift their eyes
Or think of what they sayBut I hear it in your voice, love
Like someone sweetly willing
The hope of all these years,
the prayer of a time
that we don’t even knowBut it’s a hard road that we follow
The saddest cities, and the darkest hollowsBut I hear it in your voice, love
The strongest sound
I’ve ever heard
Like water from a well
so deep in the ground
I’ll never thirst again–“Hollow” from Hem’s “Eveningland”
And if God doesn’t get your attention with a good joke, them maybe some music will do the trick.… Read the rest
–Bunny Hoest and John Reiner
I know it’s probably not that funny, but for some reason it struck me so. The laugh that ensued–a soul-cleansing guffaw– sprang from a deep, wounded place, and the tears flowed freely like a baptism of mirth, washing away my weekend woes (and no, they had nothing to do with football).
Sometimes God uses a burning bush, and sometime He just comes along and whacks you up side the head with a good joke.
In case you don’t recognize me, I’m the dog on the right. And yes, I do occasionally play dead. But I tell you one thing–under no circumstances will I ever roll over.… Read the rest
Barbara died a few days ago. She lived two doors down and had been sick for about a year. It wasn’t Alzheimer’s, but something similar, another heartless, wasting disease that took her away, bit by bit, to the horror and disappointment of her husband and family who could do little but simply love her and try to ease her passage to the other side. It was not an easy death.
I did not know her well, beyond an occasional casual conversation on the sidewalk or a friendly wave as she made her way out to retrieve her morning paper while I stumbled by at the conclusion of one of my morning runs.… Read the rest
And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
–Genesis 1:24-25
We had all wondered if Amazing Gracie the Wonderdog would remember Number One Son when he came home from college for the first time. On Friday evening, that question was answered in dramatic fashion.… Read the rest
It’s a good weekend when…
It’s so dry in Alabama.
(Fusioneers: How-dry-is-it?)
It’s so dry that:
(H/T Jill)
I knew that drop off day last Thursday would be busy and unpredictable, so I took Number One Son out to lunch at Little Rosie’s on Wednesday to serve up a little fatherly wisdom along with some steak fajitas, chips and gaucomole on the side. So far so good: no apparent E. coli poisoning.
I started off by saying that if I were to tell him everything that I know that he needed to know as a college freshman starting out, that I would flat-out fry his brain. Instead, I promised to keep it simple.
First, I wanted him to know how I “backended” into my career as an optometrist, having never even thought about that profession during college, but instead seeking it out after my first choice of clinical psychology “didn’t work out.”… Read the rest
“The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”
–Genesis 2:25
“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”
–Genesis 3:7
Yesterday was Number Three Son’s first day of public high school. Like his brothers, he was homeschooled for the first eight years (oh my, the poor barefoot, sheltered, undersocialized, top-buttoned-up little thing!) and now we’re turning throwing him into the deep end of the pool. Sink or swim, son. That’s life.
He woke up considerably earlier than usual yesterday and made the necessary ablutions and preparations (including turning on the early edition of Sports Center).… Read the rest
One of my favorite parts about visiting my Mom in Virginia is exploring the museum that is her house and searching among the archives and exhibits for long lost treasures.
Among the items that I’ve found (and rescued) in the past:
Okay, you had to know that there was no way that I could write a serious post like yesterday’s without taking a least a little humor break.
Conspicuously absent from the recall list is the Church of Christ. I feel much better now.
Among all the things that Pope Benedict XVI has stated recently, it’s important to remember one thing that he did not say: that those believers outside the Roman Catholic Church are not true Christians.
And I don’t believe that he would say that, because that’s not the official teaching of the Catholic Church (although there are many Catholics still today who might say that). What he did say is that those “ecclesial communities” formed by those other Christians are not churches in the “proper sense” because they do not have apostolic succession and are therefore “defective.” That has always been the view of the Catholic Church and the Pope is, for whatever reasons, basically stating what has always been official teaching.… Read the rest
USA Today starts the week off with two interesting religious reads.
First, a report on the growing New Sanctuary Movement, a coalition of houses of worship which is providing shelter and protection to illegal immigrants.
Second, it seems at least some boomer offspring are outdoing their parents when it comes to faith and fervor.
I find the notion that sacred space might still exist and that it might be recognized by civil authorities in this post-everything world intriguing. During the Civil War, Union cavalry soldiers commandeered local Huntsville churches to serve as stables and barracks.
Well, except for one. Above the front door of the Episcopal Church of the Nativity is a marble inscription–“Reverence My Sanctuary”–taken from Leviticus 26:2.… Read the rest
